


Shepherded Through the Looking Glass

by Curator



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, eventual Endgame fix, homage to TNG s7 e11 Parallels, romance happens so wait for it, think of this as an episode then a few b-plots and then another episode, trigger warning: children with medical conditions, trigger warning: pregnancy loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 18:44:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21360943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/pseuds/Curator
Summary: Kathryn Janeway meets a version of Tom Paris who loves her, changing the captain's perspective on her helmsman — and the way the crew might be able to get home.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris
Comments: 45
Kudos: 67





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story begins at almost the end of “Good Shepherd,” shortly after the _Delta Flyer_ is hit by the shockwave.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Refusal, by Maya Angelou  
Beloved,  
In what other lives or lands  
Have I known your lips  
Your Hands  
Your Laughter brave  
Irreverent.  
Those sweet excesses that  
I do adore.  
What surety is there  
That we will meet again,  
On other worlds some  
Future time undated.  
I defy my body's haste.  
Without the promise  
Of one more sweet encounter  
I will not deign to die.

“My crew?”

Words slurred.

Can’t move.

On my back. I’m lying on my back.

“I’m sorry, Captain.” Chakotay. “You were the only one to survive.”

No!

There were four. Telfer was recovering. Celes said she got Harren’s escape pod. Even if Celes was wrong, _Voyager_ should have pulled Telfer, Celes, and me from the _Flyer_.

Four minus one is … three?

Chakotay is blurry. “There’s something else.”

Someone holds my hand.

“Captain,” the Doctor says, “I regret to inform you the baby is gone.”

Naomi Wildman isn’t a baby anymore. I returned the Borg baby to her parents months ago.

I squint at the faces around me. The only one I’m sure of is Chakotay’s because of the dark lines that form his tattoo. I force my breath, tongue, and lips to coordinate. “How … crew … dead? What ... baby? Why ... can’t I …?”

A hypospray hisses against my neck. 

As I lose consciousness, I hear the Doctor tell Chakotay to go to the bridge, that the captain’s neural pathways clearly needed additional time to stabilize. He tells someone else to sleep on a biobed if needed, this could take a while. 

***

I can see clearly. I flex my arms, legs, abdominal muscles. Nothing hurts. I pull myself to sitting and smooth the fabric of my uniform. 

“Doctor,” I call in a voice gravelly from sleep. 

The EMH emerges from his office with Tom Paris. It must be one of the ensign’s sickbay shifts. I focus on the Doctor. 

“I need some answers.” 

He walks toward me shaking his head. “I’m afraid I don’t have them. I’ve never encountered anything like this before.”

Tom takes my hand. An odd gesture, but perhaps he’s trying to compensate for the Doctor’s lack of bedside manner. I turn to give him a curt nod of thanks for his concern. Instead, I suck in air. Tom’s eyes are bloodshot. He has at least a day’s worth of stubble. And — captains notice details — his rank shows lieutenant. 

“What —?” 

Before I can finish, Tom’s arms are around my shoulders. His forehead is pressed to mine and he’s whispering, the same words over and over. 

“I love you so much. I love you so much. I love you so much.”

My adrenaline kicks in. “Doctor!” 

Heart pounding, I scoot to the other side of the biobed, then jump off and back away. 

The Doctor’s head tilts. 

Tom’s mouth hangs open.

I don’t have time for their confusion. “Has someone scanned for a temporal variance? What’s _Voyager’s_ position? Has anyone reported unusual occurrences, things that don’t seem to match established events?” 

The Doctor gives answers that would be reassuring in other circumstances. He then adds, “I’ve even scanned your DNA yet again, Captain. The baby’s disappearance is as much a mystery as the crewmembers who vanished from the _Flyer_.”

“My DNA?” For a second I wish my brain was still sluggish. “Are you saying this baby is somehow associated with me?”

Tom turns panicked eyes to the Doctor, who grabs a medical tricorder and taps furiously at it. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” the Doctor asks. 

“I was in the _Flyer_. We’d lost propulsion and most of our antimatter. We flew into the radiogenic ring of a gas giant to try to reinitialize the core. There were spatial fluctuations. Aliens were in pursuit. I fired a phaser volley to disable them, but the _Flyer_ got caught in the shockwave.”

The Doctor nods. “Which crew members were with you, Captain?”

I force myself to speak the names of the dead. “Mortimer Harren, William Telfer, and Tal Celes.”

Tom pales and grasps the Doctor’s holographic forearm. 

The Doctor closes the medical tricorder and motions toward the biobed. My legs are more unsteady than I’d like to admit, so I climb back on. 

“Captain,” he says. “Mr. Harren was eaten by a Hanonian land eel nearly five years ago. Mr. Telfer was dismembered by Vidiians more than a year before that. Ms. Celes was killed by a Hirogen hunting party two years ago.”

My arms cross. “All three of them were with me, alive, in the _Flyer_.”

“Kathryn,” my eyes widen at Tom’s use of my first name — and the way he says it, with a soft “a” sound between the syllables, “you were with Lyndsey Ballard, Jim Hogan, and Pete Durst. Don’t you remember? You hand-picked them for your last mission before ...”

Tom turns his head. A vein in his neck distends and retreats. His palms and splayed fingers press against his thighs. 

I consider telling Tom and the Doctor that Ballard, Hogan, and Durst all died years ago, but I need Tom to finish his report. “My last mission before what?” 

Neither Tom nor the Doctor will look at me.

“_My last mission before what?_” 

I didn’t know the Doctor was programmed to mumble until he says, “Until, per regulations, you were limited to light duty for your last trimester.”

Baby. 

_My_ baby.

I hear Tom ask the Doctor if I could be breaking with reality as some sort of coping mechanism to the loss of three crewmembers and the baby all at once. The word “reality” brings me to a more probable solution. 

“Doctor, I need you to scan my cellular RNA for quantum flux. I don’t think I’m in my proper universe.”

***

While the Doctor runs analyses to determine my RNA’s quantum signature, Tom sits on the biobed next to mine. Our legs dangle across from each other. I peek and don’t see a wedding ring, but I know I wouldn’t want the crew to see my replicator rations spent on a personal indulgence. Even so, I need to confirm my hypothesis.

“Who is the baby’s father?”

Tom clears his throat. “That would be me.”

Warmth spreads across my cheeks. “How?”

“Oh,” Tom’s cheeks flush, too, “the usual way.”

I can’t help but chortle. “I meant how, in what I presume is not my reality, do we end up expecting to be parents together?”

Tom’s eyebrows knit. “Kathryn, we’ve been parents together for a long time. The Doctor said it would be best to try to keep the kids out of sickbay, but I can get them if you’d like.”

The bulkheads spin, but I know it’s my perception, not actual movement. How the hell, when she was stuck in the Delta Quadrant, did the Kathryn Janeway of this reality decide it would be a good idea to start having babies with Tom Paris?

Tom guides me as my shoulder blades hit the biobed. His hand cups my head and he eases it down. 

I didn’t notice him leaving his biobed. 

I didn’t realize I was falling. 

The last thing I see is Tom’s concerned face. 

***

When I wake again, the Doctor is scanning me. 

“Not to worry,” he says airily. “Dizziness and fatigue are side effects of being out of your own quantum reality. But, at least on this _USS Voyager_, we treat our guests well.”

I smile. “We have that in common.”

The Doctor informs me that Chakotay is in command and Tom is “with the children.” I’m not sure why the second piece of news lodges somewhere behind my breastbone.

We go to the medical lab to begin brainstorming how to swap me with the Kathryn Janeway who belongs here. 

The one who is six months pregnant.

“The variations in your physiologies likely exacerbated the difficulties of transitioning from one universe to another,” the Doctor explains. “Your weights, hormone levels, body temperatures, blood volumes — all would differ from each other.”

“Is she a terrible patient?” I joke, my hip leaning on the RNA sequencer. “Always putting off her prenatal checkups and climbing the bulkheads about having to drink decaf coffee?”

The Doctor closes his eyes. When he opens them, their deep sadness seems too sophisticated to be a subroutine. “She is,” he says, “the best patient.”

There’s no Quantum Universe Prime Directive. I can get as involved in this reality as I want to, ask anything I like.

But that increasingly seems like a bad idea. 

The Doctor comms Seven of Nine and B’Elanna to report to sickbay so we can analyze the spatial fluctuations the _Flyer_ was trying to avoid when it was hit by the shockwave. 

“Why not meet in Astrometrics?” I ask, buoyed by the knowledge Seven is onboard that Astrometrics exists.

The Doctor motions toward my abdomen. “The fewer crewmembers become concerned about their true captain’s absence, the better. The senior staff has been briefed, but, as far as anyone else knows, their captain is on the mend in sickbay.”

Of course.

When Seven arrives, she doesn’t have an ocular implant. I stare at the smooth skin around both her eyebrows. Her eyes linger on my flat stomach. B’Elanna, though clearly unsettled, at least has the same appearance as in my universe.

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” I rub my hands together, pretending I don’t notice their discomfort. “I’m sure your own captain wants to get back to you as quickly as possible.”

Hours later, following a meal break and cups of coffee that taste just as divine as the ones in my own reality, Seven has almost completed her scans. It’s too dangerous to move _Voyager_ closer to the spatial fluctuations, but B’Elanna is finishing designs on upgrades to the _Flyer’s_ sensors so it can find the quantum state that matches mine.

When B’Elanna yawns, I realize this ship must be on its night cycle. I also realize I’m exhausted. 

After Seven and B’Elanna leave, I pull myself onto a biobed. Oblivion soon follows.

***

“Captain.” The Doctor’s hand is shaking my shoulder. “You need to go to my office and sit under my desk.” 

I jump off the biobed. “Why?”

“Go!” he admonishes.

I run.

No sooner are my knees drawn to my chest under the desk than I hear the door to sickbay open accompanied by a piercing scream. When I was a lieutenant, I went on an away mission to a planet whose inhabitants trapped animals using a large, metal spike that sprung from underground. The sound filling sickbay reminds me of the sound I heard from an animal on that planet as steel impaled its paw.

“How long?” the Doctor shouts. 

“Less than two minutes.” It’s Tom’s voice, loud but calm. 

“Good,” the Doctor yells. “Good.”

Nothing, in any reality, could possibly be good about that scream. I’m about to twist my fingers into my ears when it stops. 

“Better?” The Doctor speaks at his normal volume. 

A voice with the high pitch of a child answers. “All better!”

I crawl from the desk to the glass that separates the doctor’s office from the rest of sickbay. I see the Doctor scanning a little boy in Tom’s arms. Tom and the child are both in pyjamas. The child looks to be about four years old. He’s blond and has my nose, Tom’s mouth, and blue eyes that could be from either one of us.

The eyes widen in delight at seeing me.

“Mom!”

Shit.


	2. Chapter 2

“It seems,” the Doctor says, “Kathryn Janeway cannot deny her curiosity, in any quantum reality.”

I’d cross my arms, but they are around this child who is resting his head on my chest and smiling so big I can feel his cheek pressing against me. We’re on the floor of the Doctor’s office.

“Mom still doesn’t feel well,” Tom glances at me as he crouches to pat the child’s back, “so we’d better let her stay in sickbay while we go home.”

The child shakes his head. “Where’s my baby?”

I look at Tom and the Doctor.

“Your baby is still on her way, Charlie. Keep up that great patience.”

“But I’m tired of playing with Bravo’s baby. Mine is supposed to be right here.” The child places his small hand on my stomach with a gentleness that surprises me. “This is where my baby gets ready to take away the ouch times.”

“We need to go.” Tom’s forcefulness is kind, but inarguable. The child — Charlie — untangles himself from me. He holds Tom’s hand, but looks back as they walk out of sickbay. I try to match his loving gaze.

The doors close behind them. 

“I’m sorry,” I say to the Doctor. “I just, uh, I’ve just never heard a scream quite like that.”

His lips press together in a tight line. “Your counterpart has heard hundreds.”

My ears still echo from the one, forcing an ache in my chest. 

None of this is my business. 

I shouldn’t interfere. 

This other Kathryn Janeway is entitled to her privacy. 

Yet, I whisper, “Why?”

The Doctor turns on his heel and walks away. 

If that child was four years old, there’s a good chance he was the result of Tom’s and my warp 10 flight. On my _Voyager_, Chakotay’s report stated there were three offspring on the planet. Charlie mentioned two siblings, but he called one a baby. 

I follow the Doctor into sickbay. “Is Charlie suffering from genetic reversion?”

“In a word, yes.” The Doctor busies himself rearranging hyposprays. “He receives anti-proton treatments precisely calibrated for each reversion.”

“Treatments, but not cures?”

The Doctor looks up from his hyposprays to glare at me. “At present, Charlie’s cure is a universe away.”

Before I can ask another question, Tom is in the doorway. “I’m sorry to bother you, Captain, but Charlie told his brother that he got a ‘mom hug’ in sickbay and Bravo called Charlie a liar and they’re yelling at each other. I can’t get them back to sleep and, if they wake their sister, I’m screwed for the night. I have bridge shift at 0800. Would you mind ...?” His hands move helplessly. 

I look at the Doctor. “There’s no medical reason you need to be here,” he says. “If you wish to visit your counterpart’s children to smooth things over, feel free.”

“I thought you wanted to minimize my contact with crew outside of the senior staff?”

“The corridor should be empty this time of night, but I suspect looking both ways before you cross will ensure safety to the captain’s quarters.”

Snark must be a universal constant.

What this Doctor may not know is, on my _Voyager_, my quarters are on deck 3. Tom’s are on deck 4. There are no crew quarters on deck 5.

Except, here, there are. Behind Tom, I see a door that doesn’t exist in my universe. I walk with him across the corridor and, for the first time, truly step into my counterpart’s life.

***

“The boys are Charlie and Bravo, they’re four,” Tom whispers. “The girl is Sierra. She’s seven months old and hopefully still asleep.”

A seven-month-old baby and my counterpart is six months pregnant? Is there no contraception in this universe?

“Mom!” 

A boy I haven’t seen — Bravo — runs in from a sleep alcove. His pyjamas are identical to the ones I saw on his brother, but this child has my hair color and Tom’s nose. The blue eyes are the same.

Bravo’s arms go around my leg. 

Charlie runs in and there’s an “I told you,” a Tom-prodded “I’m sorry I called you a liar,” and then arms around my other leg. 

My hands automatically cradle their little heads.

Mark and I used to talk about having children. After a year commanding _Voyager_, I would have the seniority to apply to captain a family ship. The plan was to try to get pregnant a few months into that assignment. Mark would be working on his book and family ships allow pets, so Mollie could live with us onboard. 

Holy hell, I haven’t thought about that in years. 

“You got to hug your mother, now it’s time to go back to sleep,” Tom tells the children. “The more Mom rests in sickbay, the faster we can get Charlie’s baby back.”

The boys wish me goodnight. I was fine in sickbay, playacting the part of a mother, but here, in crew quarters, my knees want to drop to the carpet so my arms can hold the children close. My brain prods me, though, with the truth — they may look like me, but they aren’t mine.

The boys disappear into their alcove and Tom follows them.

On a wall of the living area, a viewscreen displays unfamiliar constellations. My counterpart must have wanted to see the stars, but there are no viewports this deep in the ship. 

There are toys in a storage container, but not one litters the floor. 

In addition to Bravo and Charlie’s alcove, there are doors to two other sleep alcoves. One must be for the seven-month-old, the other for Tom and me. 

That is, Tom and my counterpart.

Not me.

Her.

Tom steps backward into the living area from the boys’ room. He’s saying reassuring words about good dreams and no more ouch times. He turns and sees me, my legs still slightly apart from where the children held them. He’s stooped with exhaustion, but he straightens. “Are you all right?”

I shake my head. “How did this happen?”

He gets two coffees from the replicator, ordering decaf for me, then correcting himself to regular. We sit on the sofa along the wall that holds the viewscreen. 

He tells me everything.

The Chakotay of this ship ordered the warp 10 offspring left behind, too. The Kathryn and Tom here were relieved, just as in my universe, to put an uncomfortable incident behind them. Besides, if they couldn’t recall much about their time as hyper-evolved beings, that would seem to indicate the offspring were instinct-based, not sentient.

But their Kes approached her captain and asked why that mattered, why any crewmember, humanoid or not, animal or child, would be left behind. 

The captain consulted with Tom. 

She ordered the ship to reverse course, pick up the offspring, then continue toward the Alpha Quadrant. 

It took four months of the Doctor, Kathryn, and Tom working together for hours each day, but they figured out how to resequence the offsprings’ genome to human. Along the way, they added gigaquads of information to the medical database, including a way to cure Harry and B’Elanna of a virus picked up from an insect bite and, years later, to allow Seven to shed additional implants. 

But it wasn’t enough. 

After two years of three children in the captain’s quarters with Tom sleeping in a hastily constructed spare room — until Tom no longer slept in the hastily constructed spare room — one of the children, suddenly and without warning, reverted. 

When he tries to sleep, Tom can still hear the child screaming until her heart gave out from the stress. He can still feel the woman he loves crying so fiercely in his arms that he worried she would die of a different kind of broken heart. He can still see his two surviving children searching under pieces of furniture, not comprehending what happened to their sister. 

When the Doctor scanned the living children, there were early signs of reversion. 

The captain became a woman obsessed. She would work a full shift on the bridge, then report to sickbay for research with the Doctor. She would hug and kiss her children with fear in her eyes. In the bedroom, her hands would slide along her lover’s body, then stop, grasp a padd on the nightstand, and tap out a new possible anti-reversion treatment.

Finally, she hit a solution. 

Umbilical cord blood carries stem cells that can correct genetic, or, in this case, genomic, abnormalities. A transfusion from a genetic sibling offered a high probability of permanent success — a cure. But _Voyager’s_ sickbay lacked the equipment necessary to synthesize such cells. When the Doctor offered artificial insemination, the captain took her helmsman’s hand and said that wouldn’t be necessary.

The crew buzzed with confirmation of long-held suspicions, but the captain didn’t give a damn anymore. 

When she was a few weeks pregnant, scans showed the cord blood would be a match for Bravo, but not Charlie. Both boys had been experiencing painful reversions, but Bravo’s were less receptive to treatment. By this time, to save precious minutes, the family had moved from the captain’s quarters to a former storage area across the corridor from sickbay. The children knew to clean up their toys so no one would trip over them when running with a child whose body was contorted by pain. An early warning system of commbadge taps alerted the Doctor when a reversion was in progress.

The day Tom held his newborn daughter in his arms, her umbilical cord became her brother’s lifeline. Bravo hasn’t cried since except for a stubbed toe one day in the mess hall. His genome is as stable as any other human’s.

Charlie has a reversion a few times a week, always stopped by a precisely calibrated hypospray of anti-protons. But the anti-protons will tip into poisoning Charlie within a few months. The Doctor, the captain, and Tom have discussed whether to induce the next baby early. The umbilical cord is a perfect match for Charlie.

Except that umbilical cord is now in another universe. 

This isn’t my Tom Paris. These aren’t my children. But, oh, they could be. I remember Kes, as I recovered in sickbay from the warp 10 flight, saying she wanted to ask me something. I told her I didn’t feel well and wasn’t up to chatting. She had walked away. 

I felt fine.

I just didn’t want to talk.

While it was true I didn’t recall much about being on the planet, I did remember the mutation process searing across me, scorching my body and my dignity. In the shuttle, I’d screamed in Tom’s arms, begging for death to release me from the pain. He had regained his faculties and, between apologies, he spoke to me the way the Tom of this universe speaks to his children — kind, gentle, comforting. 

In my ship’s sickbay, it had been easier to make a sex joke than to thank him for his tenderness. 

Because I wanted to push the whole thing out of my mind and never think about it again.

Which, until arriving in this universe, I had.

And now this Tom is staring into his empty coffee cup and I want to talk to him, but everything I try to say gets stuck somewhere at the back of my throat.

Then, I hear Harry over the comm. “Captain, you have an incoming transmission.”

“Who from?”

“You.”

***

Her face is bloated by pregnancy, but her voice is knife-sharp. 

Instead of mapping the area and modifying sensors, she convinced the Chakotay on my ship to send a probe into the most likely universe-spanning spatial fluctuation so she could establish direct contact between quantum realities.

Damn, I wish I’d thought of that.

She already had the Sevens and B’Elannas collaborate. Her only need for me is to confirm coordinates so we can depart within the hour. 

Tom is standing behind me as I use the computer terminal in their quarters. He leans over me to be that much closer to her. “What about —?” he asks. 

“Already taken care of,” she replies, her eyes soft when she looks at him. “The 1958 Saab GT 750. I know.”

I’m about to ask what they’re talking about when he nods and says, “Get home safe.”

“Always,” she promises and cuts the comm. 

I want to rush into her children’s rooms. I want to cradle the boys and stroke the tiny arm of the daughter I haven’t seen. I don’t want this woman’s life, but these children have my DNA. 

They do not, however, have my universe-specific RNA.

And I have to get back to my ship so she can get back to hers.

I push off my chair. 

“Before you go,” Tom says, “what’s it like in your universe? What are we to each other?”

I look up at his open, curious face. “The Tom in my universe is dating B’Elanna Torres.”

“B’Elanna?” Tom’s nose wrinkles. “She’s very pretty and whip-smart. But a bit hot under the collar — at least in this reality.”

I won’t comment on B’Elanna. Yet, words spill from my mouth before I can stop them. “Tom and I had a falling out over an ocean planet.”

“Monea,” Tom confirms. “That was a big fight here, too. But, my Kathryn agreed to host a summit of scientists and government officials on _Voyager_. It went a long way toward getting the two sides to listen to each other.”

Damn, I wish I’d thought of that. 

“How has he apologized? Tom asks. 

“Apologized?” 

“If he upset you, he had to apologize.” Tom smiles shyly. “Probably by trying to change the subject to something fun to make you laugh or be silly despite the argument.”

Holy hell. That’s why he wanted me to play Arachina. He knew I love Irish history and he made Fair Haven. And what did I do? I teased him about how he spent his free time and I criticized the backwards harp in an otherwise perfect holo-program.

And I, uh, made those modifications to the bartender. 

Tom is talking. “... Auckland.”

“I’m sorry — what did you say?”

He bursts out laughing. “I know that look. I’m not even going to ask what you were distracted about. But what I said was, at least in this reality, I told Kathryn everything she needed to know when I agreed to speak to her at the penal colony in Auckland.”

In my universe, what Tom said that sunny day so many years ago was, “Well then, I guess I'm yours.”

***

I’m at the conn of the _Flyer_ and the spatial fluctuation is 7,000 kilometers ahead. I update both Harrys on my position at the exact second my counterpart does the same. 

Do I sound that grumpy when I give a status update?

The ride gets rough and I grip my console to stay in my seat. My counterpart says she’s sending out a phaser pulse. I ask her if I should do the same and she snaps at me to maintain course. 

All right, then.

I enter the spatial fluctuation and everything is bathed in a bright, white light. I glance over and I see her, my counterpart, as we exist together for just a few seconds in this place between universes. She’s tied to her chair, large straps securing her by her hips and across her chest. Her stomach protrudes and she has to reach over it to tap her console. She pauses to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. 

I try to call her name, but I can’t speak. Somehow, though, she knows. She turns toward me and … sneers?

She _hates_ me. It’s in the squint of her eyes, the curl of her lip. Just as she heard my unspoken greeting, I’m stung by her unspoken venom.

Just then, both _Flyers_ are rocked by spatial distortions and I hold onto my console even tighter. 

She’s gone.

I’m falling.


	3. Chapter 3

“Welcome back to your own reality, Captain.”

It’s the Doctor. 

I can’t move. 

“As I’m sure my counterpart informed you, the quantum transition is more complex due to physiological differences between the two Kathryn Janeways, so, even though you regained consciousness on your own, I’ll be sedating you to allow your neural pathways additional time to organize themselves.”

It takes all my energy, but I breathe the word: “Crew?”

“Ah,” the Doctor says, “Ms. Celes has been released to quarters, Mr. Harren demanded to return to his post, and Mr. Telfer — in a first — actually left sickbay without an argument.”

If I could smile, I would. 

A hypospray hisses against my neck. Just before I slip out of consciousness, I hear Tom say, “Are you going to tell her?”

“Not yet,” the Doctor replies.

***

Chakotay is by my biobed. He smiles as he leans toward me. “Welcome back.”

“Good to be here.” I’m not sure if I’m telling the truth, but I hoist myself to sitting. “What did I miss?”

He tells me how my crew, upon discovering a six-months pregnant captain unconscious in the _Delta Flyer_, began investigating. By the time my counterpart woke up, the Doctor informed her she was out of her quantum reality.

She asked about the other members of her away team. She called for Chakotay to discuss options. Then, she asked Tom what he’d told the children. 

Tom knew the fetal DNA showed his paternity, but this was the first my crew heard about this captain having other children. With Tom.

Evidently, she cleared sickbay of everyone but herself, the Doctor, and Tom. Chakotay looks away when he says he doesn’t know what they discussed. 

I glance around, but neither the Doctor nor Tom seems to be in sickbay. I don’t have time to decide how to feel about that, though, as Chakotay continues his report.

She went all over the ship — the bridge, Astrometrics, engineering, my quarters — as she pushed to get back to her own universe as quickly as possible. Most of the crew knew she was here. 

Chakotay wraps up by telling me both _ Flyers _ emerged in their proper realities and the two _ Voyagers _were able to stay in contact for an additional hour until distortions ripped the spatial fluctuation apart. 

“We determined the aliens were attempting to communicate,” he adds. “Their message, ‘Do not belong,’ was an attempt to warn that ships don’t belong so close to the spatial fluctuations, that the ships can get sucked into other realities.”

I knew those aliens were trying to communicate.

“Excellent work, Commander. Thank you.”

Chakotay leaves to go back to the bridge and I call for the Doctor. I want to know when I’ll be cleared to return to duty. However, both the Doctor and Tom emerge from the bio-lab, almost like they were waiting for something.

The single pip on Tom’s collar catches the light and his hair seems especially blond. 

I concentrate on the Doctor.

“Am I going to live?” I joke.

The look on the Doctor’s face convinces me to never, in any universe, try to be funny in sickbay.

My heart hammers. “What?”

“You’re going to be fine,” the Doctor says. “But I regret to inform you that the stresses of a second shift in quantum realities claimed the life of your counterpart’s baby. This was a risk she and I discussed, but …”

My throat feels too big.

There’s pressure against my eyes.

I will not cry in front of Tom Paris.

I will not cry in front of Tom Paris.

I will not cry in front of Tom Paris.

Shit.

***

Tom’s strong hand is on my shoulder as he tells me that, before the two _ Voyagers _ lost communication, the Doctors worked together to devise a method to get enough cord blood to cure Charlie. We’ll never know if it worked, but there’s every reason to believe it did.

My tears slow but don’t stop. 

“There is another matter,” the Doctor says and Tom’s and my heads swivel toward him. Tom drops his hand from my shoulder. “It seems appropriate for both of you to decide how to inform the crew. Quite a few of them interacted with the other captain and they will be anxious to know what happened to her.”

I wipe my eyes to stall for time.

Tom suggests a shipwide announcement from the Doctor followed by a moment of silence. 

I approve the plan and ask to be released to my quarters. 

I nearly run. 

When I get there, a light blinks on my computer terminal. A message is encoded for captain’s eyes only.

Only a captain or a flag officer can enable that restriction.

My stomach churns, but I tap for playback.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” 

Her bloated face is twisted in outrage.

“I read your logs. You would have shot Tom down. Then you threw him in the brig and demoted him for trying to protect what didn’t belong to the people abusing it. I couldn’t understand why you were so hard on him until I accessed your personal logs. Not the ones for Starfleet. These.”

She holds up the padd that I encrypt, password-protect, and don’t sync to ship’s systems. I bite my lips together and stare out the viewport.

“You were angry because, in all the years out here, Tom was the one who was always on your side. He was the one you trusted to find the traitor, to save the entire crew on Hanon IV, to be the friend who you could drink a little too much with at Sandrine’s and he wouldn’t be horrified to see his captain tipsy.” 

She shakes the padd as if she was aware I wouldn’t be looking at her. 

“But then he started dating B’Elanna and you had no right to be surprised, but you distanced yourself and then, when he dared to take the only option you left him with to try to save that ocean, you punished him for doing exactly what you would have done in his place. You were furious he didn’t treat you with the respect you hadn’t shown him in a long time. Because, and this is my extrapolation, you were disgusted with yourself for letting your capacity for human connection bleed away into the Delta Quadrant stars. As well you should be.”

She jabs at the computer terminal and the recording ends. 

My finger shakes as I delete her message.

***

I’ve had bridge shifts with Tom and I’ve seen him in the mess hall. Other than orders or polite greetings, we haven’t spoken. 

But today is my monthly meeting with Tom and Seven in Astrometrics to discuss long-range course planning. 

I enter and they’re standing at their consoles. The display shows our current position and expected space ahead. 

Seven suggests an efficient, nearly linear course. 

Tom differs. He wants a more roundabout flight path at a higher speed, noting his plan avoids potential obstacles. 

Seven’s ocular implant rises at the word “obstacles,” but she doesn’t ask for clarification.

I don’t have time for Twenty Questions and I’d prefer not to tax the engines. I’m about to order Seven’s course plan when I think of the recording from my counterpart.

_ Tom was the one who was always on your side_. 

I dismiss Seven. 

One hand goes to my hip. The other motions toward the display of star systems with Tom’s curvy flight plan in green and Seven’s straight line in blue. 

“Tom, why are you suggesting an indirect course?”

He taps at his console. 

“There’s a variance here that could put out a graviton surge.” The display zooms and shifts to show the phenomena along Seven’s blue line. “If it does, that surge could pull _Voyager _into an inert layer of subspace about nine light years in circumference.”

A void.

Tom is trying to bypass a spatial void. 

He knows — everybody knows — how difficult it was for me the last time the ship entered a void.

And supplies. Of course. There’s no way to resupply in a void, and other crew members also suffered adverse effects. Those could be Tom’s concerns.

“Yes, well.” I stare at the display so I don’t have to look at him. “That’s excellent thinking, Mr. Paris. _ Voyager _ will follow your course plan.”

I’m almost to the door, but I turn as if pulled by a magnet. Tom was watching me leave, not looking at a console. 

“Tom, why didn’t you say something in front of Seven to explain why your course plan was better for the crew?”

He shrugs. “I know you don’t like to talk about things that make you uncomfortable.”

I leave Astrometrics as quickly as I can.

***

It’s almost a week later when I hear the gossip. 

Tom and B’Elanna broke up again. 

Big fight in the mess hall.

Most of gamma shift saw B’Elanna shouting and Tom trying to calm her down. Then B’Elanna slammed her tray against the tabletop and stormed out. Tom sat at the table alone for a couple of minutes, then got up and left.

At the next senior staff meeting, they don’t look at each other.

Tuvok is giving his tactical report and I glance around to ensure everyone is paying attention.

Harry is nodding and Seven’s head is tilted in interest and Tom’s lower lip is slightly puffy in a way that begs to be tugged between teeth. 

What the hell?

I focus on Tuvok’s plan to improve phaser targeting efficiency.

Tom’s hair is fine and smooth, the kind that feels amazingly silky between fingers … or legs….

Phaser targeting efficiency. 

Is it still that? 

No, Chakotay is giving personnel updates. 

I shift in my seat and force myself to learn about the latest duty roster changes.

The meeting is over and I dismiss everyone. 

“Mr. Paris,” I call without planning to. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

Shit. Now I have to think of something to say.

I ask a few questions I already knew the answers to about how Tom is compensating for sluggishness on the left nacelle. It’s a complex problem and his answers reflect the depth of his understanding of warp theory and astrophysics. 

And he’s standing so close to me I can smell his Starfleet aftershave.

“You know,” I interrupt, “you’re needed at the helm and I have a stack of padds I need to go through in my ready room. Do you mind if we discuss this over dinner?”

Tom blinks, but replies, “Sure. I’ll meet you in the mess hall after our shift.”

“Actually, I hear Neelix is making lasagna and I’m not a fan of all that pasta.” This is the truth. “Would my quarters be all right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After the doors close behind Tom, I turn toward the viewport. 

I’m just trying to repair a friendship with a member of my senior staff. 

Wondering how my counterpart handled protocol concerns is an entirely separate line of thought and one that ends now.

***

I knew Tom would wear his uniform because I suggested this as a working dinner. 

But if I hear “yes, ma’am” one more time I’m going to stab myself with my fork.

I liked the way his counterpart said my name. Kath-ah-ryn. Like he needed an extra syllable because he wanted to roll the word around his mouth, twist it around his tongue.

“Tom.” I look up from my half-eaten salad. “What did my counterpart tell you about the children?”

We had been discussing upgrades to the helm interface, but Tom smiles softly as if this were a natural shift in topics.

“She said Bravo was like her, always trying to get the last word. Charlie was more like his father, very forgiving. Sierra loved music. I told her that reminded me of my sister Moira, but she already knew.”

I clear my throat. “What about the one who reverted?”

“She said Alfa once fingerpainted an entire bulkhead with puréed leola root as high as she could reach.”

An artist. Like my sister, Phoebe.

“Strange names.” I shake my head slightly. “Do they mean anything to you?”

Tom’s smile becomes a grin. “Of course. They’re from Earth’s old International Civil Aviation Organization phonetic alphabet.”

My nose crinkles. “What?”

“Your counterpart said the hyper-evolved offspring brought onboard were labeled A, B, and C. My counterpart insisted on giving them names, making them more than laboratory specimens. So, following the phonetic alphabet, they became Alfa, Bravo, and Charlie.”

That sounds like my Tom.

I mean, the Tom of my universe. 

Ahem.

“Sierra got her name because she ‘saved’ her brother.” Tom’s eyes drop to the table. “The next one was going to be Lima because Charlie ‘loved’ his baby so much.”

If I had an appetite, it’s gone.

“This is a little weird,” I admit. “Having spent time with counterparts of each other. Discussing children that have our DNA but aren’t ours.”

Tom’s head snaps up and he looks at me with an intensity I’ve never seen from him before. “What were they like?”

My legs feel the memory-echo of little arms wrapped around them. 

“They were sweet. I only met the two boys, but they were good, loving kids. Cute, too, with a combination of our features.”

Tom pushes his plate a few centimeters away from his body. I can practically see the gears in his head turning as he considers something. 

He makes a decision.

“Captain, this isn’t like you.”

“What isn’t like me?” 

I know what Tom is going to say, but I need time to think.

“You don’t discuss personal topics that make you uncomfortable. Knowing our counterparts were in love, raising children together — that’s the sort of thing you usually avoid. You ran out of sickbay as quickly as you could after I gave you my report. You left Astrometrics the minute I mentioned something that wasn’t official business. So, what’s going on now?”

His blue eyes lock on mine and I have to tell him. 

“You’re a good, gracious person and I took your friendship for granted. Your counterpart is a fine father, a thoughtful partner, a conscientious crew member. I just thought ...”

My face is hot.

Tom’s eyebrows go up. “Captain, do you want to be friends or do you want to date me?”

“Well,” I rearrange the napkin on my lap, “that’s not really a unilateral decision, is it?”

I demoted him.

I was critical of his holodeck programs.

He and B’Elanna haven’t even been broken up for a week. 

There’s no way he would want to —

“We can try dating, Kathryn.”

Kath-ah-ryn.

I’m nodding because I don’t trust my voice.

***

The next morning on the bridge, Tom gives no indication that we had dinner, then talked on my sofa about choices we never made and quarters that have never been on deck 5.

Yes, I told him everything. Including how his counterpart introduced himself by pressing his forehead to mine and professing his love. 

“Now you’re making me wish the Doc hadn’t immediately informed your counterpart she was out of her own quantum reality.” Tom’s smile was only a little devilish. “What did you do when he did that?”

“I got the hell away from him!” I admitted.

Tom chuckled and I could have changed the subject. 

But I wanted Tom to know the truth.

“But, uh, I find myself thinking about it and how it was kind of nice.”

His hands went to his chest in mock horror. “_Kind of _nice?”

“All right,” my grin widened, “really nice.”

When Tom left, he didn’t try to kiss me and that was appropriate. 

Completely appropriate. 

Definitely appropriate. 

So now I’m staring at the back of his head on the bridge and wondering if I should ask him to dinner again and, if I do, what would happen now that we’ve talked about the other reality and need to discuss our own.

***

There is no way B’Elanna meant to enable a second date. She presented a series of potential solutions for the nacelle concern at the senior staff meeting. Tom and I had to discuss which would be best for helm efficiency and our flight plan.

When the briefing room cleared of everyone but us, Tom asked if I wanted to go over options immediately or over dinner in his quarters. 

“In the interests of maximizing a productive analysis while maintaining time at our posts, I think dinner would be best,” I deadpanned. 

Tom said, “Aye, Captain,” and my stomach twisted as I wondered if I’d misread his intentions. 

Then he winked.

Within seconds, my cheeks hurt from smiling. I spent the rest of the shift in my ready room, not wanting anyone else to see my goofy grin.

Now, I’m in uniform and the storage container I’m carrying has padds for the various nacelle repair options, plus a bottle of wine tilted on its side so it doesn’t protrude over the top of the container. 

The turbolift and corridors seem to go on forever as I nod at crewmembers, but Tom grants me entry to his quarters right away. I awkwardly thrust the storage container toward him. He thanks me, but when he looks at the wine label he laughs.

“California Chardonnay 2355? This is the least energy-intensive wine in the replicator files.”

Of course he would know that.

“Can’t be wasteful,” I mutter, glancing around his small but tidy quarters. “Resources.”

“I understand,” he says and I look into his eyes and I believe him.

We tackle the work first, then, with a nacelle plan in place, Tom clears the padds off the table and replicates dinner. 

“I love chicken paprikash!” I exclaim as he brings my plate. 

“I know,” he shyly slides my entree in front of me, “you mentioned it once.”

“And you remembered?”

He shakes out his napkin and he sits. “Yeah.”

The wine flows and the food disappears as we talk.

Holo-programs, professors in common at the academy, missing the cycle of weather on a planet but loving the stars more, wondering if Tuvok will ever snap and strangle Neelix. Conversation is easy for a long time.

Then Tom tells me what happened with B’Elanna, how he thought she had a gentleness buried deep within a facade of anger, how he still thinks that but decided to leave further excavation to her next partner. 

“Why?”

He says he doesn’t want to talk about it just yet, but he will.

I have to respect that.

He jokes about Klingon-temper nightmares.

I lean over and confess how I dream of padds after I’ve fallen asleep reading padds and then I wake up to read more padds.

“Sounds like you’re working too hard,” he says and his eyebrows furrow in some kind of devotion mixed with concern.

I inhale sharply.

This is a mistake. 

I shouldn’t try to date someone under my command, especially out here in the Delta Quadrant. 

I must have gotten confused after shifting quantum realities and I’ve somehow conflated this Tom with the other one, the one who loves his captain. 

I need to get out of here.

“Computer,” Tom speaks into the air. “Music selection Paris alpha nine.”

I don’t recognize the song, but before I can say anything Tom pulls me to my feet and we’re slow dancing, his hand sure on my lower back. 

“Relax,” his warm breath tickles my ear. “It’s _Unforgettable _ by Nat King Cole. The song isn’t about being in love. It’s just about being interested.”

That was thoughtful.

But this isn’t right.

I need to report to sickbay for an immediate mental evaluation to determine why I’ve done something so incredibly foolhardy.

But then Tom’s thumb and index finger gently lift my chin and he strokes my hair to let me know what he’s about to do and my eyes close as his lips press against mine and I can’t breathe because he tastes like the best cheap wine I’ve ever had.


	4. Chapter 4

It was my counterpart. 

She loved Tom more than she hated me and she told him everything.

Everything.

“She said you used to check out my ass when I took over at the helm.”

“In my defense, I check out a lot of asses.”

“Including mine!”

Tom told me that on our third date, the one where we didn’t bother with uniform jackets or work and he brought not-cheap wine to my quarters. 

“She said, if we ever started going out, that you would get cold feet more than once and to just kiss you until you felt better.”

“Did you have to stop kissing me to share that information?”

Tom told me that on our fourth date, the one where we met on the holodeck and he taught me what “parking” was in a 1957 Ford Fairlane convertible.

“She said to be honest with you, always, even if it made you mad.”

“Are you about to make me mad?”

It’s the start of our fifth date. We’ve just begun a game of Velocity and I shoot a target as I ask Tom the question. 

“I don’t know, but I’m going to tell you.” He aims and hits a target. “B’Elanna asked me if I want to get back together.”

The holodeck grid fades from my vision. “Oh.”

By unspoken agreement, Tom and I have kept our dates a secret. I like to think we’ve given no indication on duty of any warmer relations between us. It’s only been a few weeks and we haven’t even had sex, just a lot of kissing and touching. 

Oh God, I’m going to miss the kissing and touching. 

And the talking. Tom is so easy to talk to and he helps me get out of my own head, forget duty and just be in the moment. 

“Kathryn!”

Kath-ah-ryn. I won’t hear Kath-ah-ryn anymore. 

There’s a bright light in my eyes and I realize Tom phasered a target just before it hit me in the face. 

It was my target, so Tom loses a point for the hit.

“Computer, pause game.” I lower my phaser to the floor and wait for a far worse blast. “What did you tell B’Elanna?”

Tom looks at me evenly. “I told her I needed to think about it.”

What’s there to think about? B’Elanna is younger than I am, has a Klingon sex drive, and didn’t spend years squandering a friendship she should have appreciated. She has fewer onboard responsibilities, she isn’t everyone’s superior officer, and her mentor wasn’t Tom’s father — something Tom says doesn’t bother him but has got to make him uncomfortable on some level.

Tom orders the computer to add two bean bag chairs to the simulation. I’ve never seen chairs like them before, sort of a cross between a pillow and a small hill. Tom shows me how to sit with my knees pulled up and my back and shoulders burrowed into the soft material.

“I cared about B’Elanna when I was with her,” he says, settling into his own bean bag chair. “She told me more than once that she was in love with me, but I never said it back. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t.”

My chest hurts, but I wait for Tom to continue. 

“It’s just ...” He flexes his hands, a gesture I’ve learned means he’s trying to find the words to explain what’s on his mind. “I’m done. I’m done playing games and dating to just date. I want to be in a relationship that’s going somewhere, not one that has highs and lows but doesn’t progress.”

“I see.” I don’t see. 

“Here’s the thing, Kathryn.” His blue eyes lock on mine. “I thought you and I had a spark when we first met. I felt that way for a while. But then you seemed more friendly with Chakotay than anyone else and then Seven took up most of your time. I know it’s too early in our dating relationship for me to ask this, but if you see us staying together, maturing as a couple, then I’m in. If not, then this is a small ship and I’ll try again with B’Elanna.”

Hope and panic flood my veins in equal measure. 

I scrunch my eyes shut. “I’m in.”

I hear a rustling. Then a lock of hair is pushed behind my ear. I open my eyes and Tom is kneeling in front of my bean bag chair. He lets me pull him close and my lips find his and I intend to kiss him but I start laughing instead because I’m so goddamn relieved and also because this could be it. This could be something that lasts when I didn’t think I was going to have another chance.

***

“I see.” Chakotay lowers the padd. 

Tuvok is still reading my proposal. 

“It’s a sound plan.” Under my ready room desk, my palms are pressed against the tops of my thighs.

It’s the morning after Tom’s and my Velocity date. 

We left a trail of exercise clothes from the door of my quarters to my bedroom. 

He wanted me face-down to start and his warm lips kissed their way up my spine. He was bent over me and he murmured into my skin how I was beautiful, that I was worth the wait, that he would show me how he felt about me. I tried to tell him the same thing, but the ache between my legs was coiled so tightly I couldn’t speak. Then Tom turned me over and his teeth were on my neck, my breasts, my lips. He pushed inside me and his hips rocked against mine and he moved above me like a wave. My hands kept slipping across the muscles of his back. He felt like strength and heat and energy, but sweaty and real, too. Then he shifted in just the right way and the coil inside me exploded. I was shaking and crying out and just as I was easing down, he got there and the bliss on his face — and the last few slams of his hips — sent me right into a second orgasm.

Which was odd because missionary usually doesn’t do much for me.

We woke up about an hour later and he took a sonic shower and left at a late, but not insane hour. Neither of us wanted to be caught by the internal sensors. 

That left me to work for most of the night on a proposal to modify the command structure. It calls for me to still be able to give Tom simple orders like speed or course corrections, but more complex decisions like _Voyager’s_ flight plan and Tom’s assignments to non-urgent away teams require Chakotay’s approval. If Chakotay and I disagree, Tuvok would be empowered to break the deadlock.

Chakotay leans forward in his seat. “This isn’t like you, Kathryn. Going against protocol, willfully giving up some of your authority. You’ll understand if I want you to have a medical evaluation before I agree to this?”

I nod.

“A logical precaution.” Tuvok lowers his padd. 

They haven’t caught the loophole. If Chakotay decides any course ahead is too dangerous and the crew should give up the journey home and settle on a planet, I can argue the decision is tactical and therefore still within my purview. I stifle a grin and listen to what Tuvok is saying.

“However, presuming the captain is, indeed, found to be in possession of her faculties, I agree to her proposal regarding Mr. Paris with one query remaining: Who will determine the ensign’s potential changes in rank?”

Department heads usually send Chakotay rank change proposals. If he approves them, they then go to me for final authorization. 

Chakotay turns to Tuvok. “Since I can’t approve or deny my own proposal and the captain’s authorization is complicated in this situation, do you mind taking on the career path for someone who isn’t a security officer?”

“I accept the responsibility,” Tuvok replies, then adds, “You will be receiving a rank change proposal from me within 24 hours.”

My eyes widen as I envision Crewman Paris. But Tuvok continues. 

“Lieutenant, junior grade. I will include ample evidence for the promotion.”

Chakotay’s jaw flexes. “Consider it preliminarily approved.”

They think I was too hard on Tom when I demoted him. 

I won’t have to feel the ache in my breastbone when I look at that one pip.

My closest friends are not only going to let this happen, they’re going to make it better. 

“Well, gentlemen.” I stand, not wanting them to see the depths of my appreciation. “It seems I need to report to sickbay. Chakotay, you have the bridge.”

The Doctor scans my DNA, RNA, neural pathways, and brain chemistry. He quizzes me on my own history and things that have happened onboard _Voyager_. He samples my blood and I’m starting to wonder if he will want toenail clippings when he pronounces me fully myself. 

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. 

I really am making this decision. 

By the time I get back to my ready room, the Doctor’s report is appended to my proposal and Chakotay and Tuvok both have approved the plan. There’s a space for Tom to note his receipt of the changes and, as I watch my screen, his electronic signature appears. 

I’ve never been married, but this feels somehow legal and permanent. 

I lean back in my chair and tug slightly at my turtleneck. It feels warm in here.

***

Tom says B’Elanna called him a pig and an idiot and had some Klingon epithets for me.

But he and I are in my bed together and my head is on his chest and I’m having trouble caring about anything except how deliciously tingly yet content I am in his arms. 

“At least B’Elanna didn’t make a scene.” 

Tom kisses the top of my head. “And she said she will be thoroughly professional on duty even if she thinks we’re a couple of _ yintaghs_.”

“Why would she call us big-mouthed windbags?” I shift so I can see Tom’s face. “That seems like an odd insult, in Klingon or in Federation Standard.”

“Remember when I told you I wanted to find the gentleness under B’Elanna’s anger?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the reason I decided to step away from that was because of some talks with your quantum counterpart.”

Tom explains that when my counterpart cleared sickbay she told the Doctor to report to the bio-lab to research ways to protect her body against the stresses of the shift in quantum realities. She then turned to Tom.

She asked why he was an ensign, whether he was happy, and what the hell he wanted out of his life. 

She listened to his answers and then told him what was possible — a partner who would try her best to avoid fighting, who wouldn’t call him names or curse at him, and who could understand his high-pressure upbringing and why it still bothered him.

“B’Elanna thought your counterpart was a silver-tongued charlatan telling me truths about a reality that didn’t impact ours. She thought I was a fool for giving any of it a second thought.” 

Tom and I have moved so we’re face to face on the same pillow. His hair is soft between my fingers and his hip is just the right kind of hard against my inner thigh.

“It sounds like both our counterparts were matchmakers, with mine coming on a bit stronger than yours,” I say. 

“Which makes sense.” Tom’s lips meet mine and I feel him smiling. “I like bossy women.”

“Oh, good,” I purr and, without saying another word, proceed to tell him exactly what I would like him to do next.

***

Tom and I have been a couple for eight months when I’m sitting in my command chair, proud of everyone for things going so well. For the crew no longer batting an eye even when Tom and I both stumble out of my quarters during a middle-of-the-night red alert. For B’Elanna keeping up her excellent work in engineering despite not talking to either one of us off duty. For Harry and Tom maintaining their friendship by having dinner together most nights while I get work done.

But Harry interrupts my contented reverie. 

“Captain! There’s something coming out of subspace.”

“What is it, Harry?”

“I … I don’t know.”

I get to Harry’s console to study his readings and my hands start to shake. 

“A wormhole,” I breathe. 

It leads to the Alpha Quadrant. 

No, the Beta Quadrant. 

Now the Alpha Quadrant again. 

Sensors now show the Gamma Quadrant. 

“It’s unstable,” I announce. “Let’s study it a while to see if there’s a pattern.”

I try not to get my hopes up for a quick trip home, but my heart always pounds for these every-so-often promises that never come true. 

Sensors light up with a chroniton surge, a sign of time travel, and then something tumbles out of the wormhole. It’s a small ship, possibly holding just one person, most likely Federation from the hull and nacelle configuration, but more advanced than any I’ve ever seen. 

“Tuvok, report.”

“Starfleet,” he confirms. His eyebrow rises as he adds, “And hailing us.”

“Onscreen.”

Tom is always utterly professional on the bridge. But, like everyone else, he gasps and turns to look at me when we see who is hailing us.

The man with captain’s pips is maybe forty years old, blond, and has my nose, Tom’s mouth, and blue eyes that could be from either one of us. The face is slightly off from what I remember, but I still blurt out, “Charlie?”

He smiles and it’s Tom’s smile. “No, but you told me you’d probably think so. I’m Captain Tango Paris of the Federation timeship _Hope_. It feels a little strange to ask, but, Mom, may I have permission to come aboard?”

Holy shit.


	5. Chapter 5

When Tuvok and I arrive with a security team to meet Tango in the shuttlebay, our guest is already out of his timeship and visually inspecting the hull of the _ Delta Flyer_. He’s wearing a mostly red uniform and he has Tom’s height, but the rest of his body is narrow like mine.

He turns and smiles his Tom-smile. “Sickbay? So the Doc can study my DNA, RNA, and toenail clippings?”

I never told anyone about that stray thought. 

“You understand.” I tilt my head toward the corridor.

“Of course.” Tango walks with us and even knows which way to turn to get to sickbay. “You're asking yourself if I’m really who I say I am or if this is some sort of deception. But Uncle Tuvok should have his people examine my ship, taking a close look at the shields. In the meantime, the Doc can confirm my identity.”

With his eyebrow up, “Uncle Tuvok” orders his security officers to take a look. 

On the way to sickbay, Tango runs his hand along the bulkhead directly across the corridor. Once we get him settled on a biobed, it doesn’t take long for the Doctor to pronounce Tango a mix of Tom’s and my DNA and in possession of our universe’s cellular RNA. 

Tuvok has joined his officers studying the shuttle, but my hand still rests on my phaser. “There’s no way to know how this DNA was combined. It could be stolen.”

“Actually,” Tango grins, “remember that pulsar you passed about three weeks ago? The one that put out all the radiation?”

“Of course,” the Doctor says, “I inoculated the crew.”

“And those inoculations made their contraception boosters about as useful as a hypospray loaded with saline.”

My eyes widen but the Doctor is already scanning my midsection. “Captain, I must inform you that due to ...”

I taste a sickening mixture of the casserole-like substance Neelix slid onto my tray at lunch and the coffee I had with it. My own heartbeat throbs in my ears.

I don’t have time for a baby. I barely have time for Tom. 

Oh my God, I have to tell Tom.

“... and the DNA is a match down to the last nucleotide.” The Doctor closes his medical tricorder.

Then a large hand is on my stomach with a gentleness that surprises me.

“Hi, me,” Tango coos. “Don’t worry, I’m here to take everyone home.”

***

When the senior staff assembles in the briefing room, Tango pulls a tennis ball-sized object from his pocket. He holds it up. “Portable holo-emitter. Not a weapon, so there’s nothing to worry about Uncle Tuvok.”

With Tuvok’s nod, Tango tosses the object onto the table. A holo-image activates above it — a three-dimensional map of the Alpha Quadrant with Federation space lit up in green. 

“This is what you left,” Tango says, “Federation borders as they existed in 2371. If you return home in the way I’m going to suggest, this is what you’ll return to.” 

The map shifts imperceptibly, if at all.

“But,” Tango continues, “if you wait and don’t use the wormhole, you’ll return to borders that look like this.”

Federation space shrinks to perhaps a third of its size.

“In 2387, Romulus will be destroyed by a supernova. What this means is —”

“Temporal Prime Directive,” I remind him. 

“Just indulge me a few more minutes,” Tango pleads. “I’m nearly done with the temporal part.”

I glance around and everyone seems attentive, especially Harry who’s practically wriggling like a puppy at the prospect of getting home. Tom is blatantly staring at Tango and it occurs to me that Tango hasn’t acknowledged Tom in any way. 

“Let’s say everything you’re telling us is true,” B’Elanna says. “What do you want us to do?”

“I’m just getting to that, Aunt B.” Tango winks at B’Elanna and her eyes widen. “When Romulus is destroyed, billions of Romulans are evacuated, but they need a new homeworld.”

“Most planets in systems that surround Romulus are panthalassic,” Tuvok says, referring to worlds that are essentially water at their surface with a rocky core within. “There is speculation regarding subaquatic, plant-supporting land masses with trapped oxygen, but those theories remained unproven at the time of _ Voyager’s _ journey to the Delta Quadrant.”

“They’re true,” Tango says, “and if the Romulans had a way to settle those worlds, they would. But they lack a technology to enable them to travel from the trapped landmasses into space.”

“The _Delta Flyer_,” Tom interjects. “It’s modified to move from space to water and back.”

My queasiness settled when I left sickbay and could try to push this pregnancy out of my mind, but the reason the_ Delta Flyer _became seaworthy churns my stomach again. 

Tango doesn’t look at Tom, but he does continue his father’s line of thinking. “And those modifications are going to save the Federation — once _Voyager_ flies through that wormhole to get home.”

“Why would it not be sufficient to simply convey the _Delta Flyer’s _modification plans to the Romulans yourself?” Seven asks. 

“My mom just yelled at me for a Temporal Prime Directive violation.” Tango smirks in my direction. “I’m not taking that risk again.”

I don’t bother pointing out that I didn’t yell.

“I brought data on the wormhole and how to predict when it will lead to the Alpha Quadrant. The problem is the wormhole’s inherent instability could rip _Voyager _apart. That’s why I also brought shield upgrades. You’ll lose systems and pretty much belly-flop out near Deep Space Five, but you’ll make it in one piece.”

I tell everyone to study Tango’s information and we’ll reconvene the following morning. As they all leave, I stay in my chair just long enough to get a deep breath — and avoid conversation. 

When I get to the bridge, Tango is studying the helm console. He remarks to the relief conn officer, “Point-zero-three variance on thruster two.” Tango then reaches over and taps a few times. “Fixed.”

Tom is by Tango’s shoulder and he nods appreciatively. “Good to know you learned a few things from your old man.”

Tango glances at Tom and a sharp pain slices through my breastbone as I realize Tom, in Tango’s timeline, doesn’t become an old man.

***

“What happens to your father?”

My voice sounds like steel, but I’m actually terrified. Tango and I are walking to his guest quarters — without a security escort. I can barely feel my body, it’s like I’m floating down the corridor in a nightmare. 

“Do you care about the Temporal Prime Directive or not? You can’t have it both ways.”

I’ve been a mother for only a couple of hours and already this kid is pissing me off. 

“Look, Mom, you and I discussed this before I left on my mission. You’re okay with me telling but only if you — that is, the you I’m talking with right now — can accept a non-mission-critical breach of the Temporal Prime Directive.”

Now I’m pissed at this kid and at myself.

But the pain in my chest at the thought of losing Tom is only getting worse.

I key in the code for guest quarters and we enter. “All right. I want to know.”

Tango sits on the sofa and pats next to him for me to sit. I do, wishing this was already over with. 

He tells me about the radiation inoculation-induced baby boom about to happen on the ship. He starts listing pregnant crewmembers including Tal Celes, Sue Brooks, Susan Nicoletti, and more. My ears perk up for B’Elanna, and Tango says B’Elanna and “Uncle Noah’s” daughter, Miral, is one of his best friends. 

B’Elanna and Noah Lessing?

Tango explains that with so many children onboard, I’ll order the storage area across from sickbay to be reconfigured into a school and, during red alerts, a central, protected location in case of enemy fire. 

“It was a battle with the Fen Domar,” he says. “Usually Neelix would come to tell us kids everything was fine and we could return to our schoolwork or go back to our quarters. But, I was five years old, and it felt like hours after the red alert was over that you came to get me.”

Tango flexes his hands and continues. 

“You said the ship was rocked by a blast and Daddy’s head hit his console so hard that he died. But I decided the truth was he was on a top-secret away mission or working Gamma shift and sleeping in your ready room when he got tired. Because I’d never known a day without my dad and I couldn’t believe it was possible to live without him. But, one night, I realized I had been lying to myself and I started crying in my bed. You ran in and held me and you cried, too. We did that every night for a long time.”

I believe him because tears are sliding down my face and Tango and I are holding each other and, in that horrible way time travel reverberates in the brain, I know he and I have done this before. 

“Anyway,” he sniffles and speaks quietly into my ear, “the _Delta Flyer’s _technology isn’t enough. The Federation needs Dad’s experience piloting a seaworthy space shuttle. Only his knowledge can convince the Romulans they’re better off populating worlds already in their borders instead of taking planet after planet from the Federation. For me, my dad died thirty-five years ago. But, if my mission is a success, he can be a hero as soon as tomorrow.”

***

When I get to my quarters, Tom is pacing the carpet and running his hand over his hair. He turns and sees me. 

“I’m a horrible father,” he moans. “My own kid won’t even look at me.”

My fingers are already reaching for the zipper on his jacket. I need to feel him, alive and warm. 

“Tango loves you. It’s just complicated.”

Tom grabs my hands. “What did he tell you?”

Any concern I have for the Temporal Prime Directive has gone out the airlock. 

“You died when he was a little boy, Tom.” I’m trying to speak normally but my voice is a whisper. Still, Tom recoils as if I’ve slapped him. I step toward him again, caress his cheeks, move my fingertips along the curve of his ears, rest a hand on his broad chest. “I’m not going to let it happen. We’re going to do what Tango suggests and take _Voyager_ into the wormhole. I believe him and I refuse to live in the timeline he described.”

“Kathryn,” Tom tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, “you don’t control course planning anymore. Chakotay and Tuvok can overrule you if they decide it’s too risky.”

And, once again, I’m holding and being held by a man with the last name Paris as we cry.

***

“Absolutely not,” Chakotay says. 

“I must concur,” Tuvok adds. 

I want to jump out of my briefing room seat and throttle them. “Why the hell not? Don’t you want to save the Federation?”

Tuvok regards me as if I’ve lost critical brain cells. “The Federation will hardly be saved if _Voyager _is unable to traverse the wormhole.”

“I agree.” B’Elanna nods. “Systems we would lose include artificial gravity, inertial dampers, and life support. That’s under the best case scenario.”

Tuvok recommends further study and B’Elanna lists alternatives to elements of Tango’s plan while Chakotay and Seven discuss whether Borg upgrades could enhance some of the shield modifications. Tom and I look at each other and it’s like he’s at the end of a long corridor and the area between us is stretching and I can’t stop it.

Tango slams a hand to the table. Everyone turns to him, mouths open but silent. 

“Yes, you’ll lose systems, but Federation ships will arrive to render aid before anyone dies. I’ve worked with most of you on this project every day for five years. I’ve known all of you my entire life. We’ve reconceptualized and recalculated and refined until we could barely think straight. This is the best it gets.”

“Then why didn’t one of us come?” B’Elanna snaps. “We might trust ourselves more than we trust you.”

“Do you know how hard it is to fly a ship through an unstable wormhole?” Tango’s eyes are narrowed. “You all logged months of practice in the simulator, but not one of you could do it.”

Tuvok’s eyebrow practically lifts off his forehead. “Then what inclines you to believe we will be successful with _Voyager_, a ship much larger than your own?”

“Because,” Tango crosses his arms, “from what I’ve been told, you have a pilot onboard who’s even better than I am.”

There’s a long second while everyone takes in what Tango said. 

Then, it’s like he threw a grenade.

Harry demands, “What happens to Tom?” while Chakotay asks me if I knew about this and Tom stares at the ceiling. B’Elanna questions whether Tango is telling the truth while Seven and Tuvok want details.

“Let’s not lose sight of our objective.” I talk over everyone. “This is a tactical matter and the Federation needs our help.”

“We have no proof of that other than Captain Paris’ assertion,” Tuvok points out. 

“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.” Tango reaches into his pocket and pulls out his holo-emitter. “But here.”

He tosses the device onto the center of the table and, in turn, it projects Seven, then Harry, B’Elanna, Tuvok, Chakotay, and finally me. Each of us, weathered by age, speaks about the importance of the mission. A secret code seems to exist between each person and their younger counterpart. When the B’Elanna with grey streaks in her hair says something about surviving the Sea of Gatan, the B’Elanna at the table blinks rapidly. When the Chakotay with a salt-and-pepper beard mentions the name Ce Acatl, the Chakotay at the table nods as the older version of him says to embrace strength from any source. 

But the version of me with grey hair and delicate lines spiderwebbed across her cheeks doesn’t tell a story like the others. She just turns grave eyes toward me and says, “The dance can be _Unforgettable _if you let it.”

The holo-emitter shuts down.

“We’ll reconvene in an hour.” I survey rueful faces as I speak through a too-big throat. “Harry, I want you to —” 

“No.” Tom practically spits the word. “We need to settle this now. Everybody knows I’m going to die. But I’m still here and I think I can solve this.”

Even Tango gapes at Tom.

“You said we may lose life support, artificial gravity, and inertial dampers?” Tom asks B’Elanna. At her affirmation, Tom turns to Harry. “If you didn’t have to worry about artificial gravity and inertial dampers, could you reroute that power to life support?”

“Sure,” Harry says, “but what do you suggest to keep us all from sliding across the ceiling?”

Tom squares his shoulders. “The 1958 Saab GT 750.”

***

The 1958 Saab GT 750, as it turns out, was the first automobile that came standard with something called seat belts. As Tom explains the physical restraint concept, I remember my counterpart and her Tom speaking of the vehicle.

The Tom at the briefing room table says if everyone on _ Voyager _ had a “seat belt,” then losing artificial gravity wouldn’t prevent us from staying at our posts. We’d be tossed around a bit without inertial dampers, but most of us have been through that before. 

The image swims in my mind of my counterpart, tied to her seat in the _Flyer_ in an attempt to protect her pregnancy. I never thought to ask who secured her, but I’m now sure it was Tom.

To save resources, Tuvok suggests each crew member’s “seat belt” be made from one of that person’s spare uniforms. He can teach everyone how to tie Vulcan knots to keep the material in place. 

Chakotay agrees and they set 0800 tomorrow as the time to begin moving _Voyager_ toward the wormhole.

I don’t know how, but I find my voice to dismiss the senior staff. “Misters Paris,” I add. “A word?”

When it’s only the three of us in the room, I tell Tom and Tango that I expect Tango to recreate holodeck simulations for Tom to practice flying through the wormhole’s rough conditions. To their credit, they both accept the order and go, their resolute faces and loping strides identical. 

It’s late that night when I get back to my quarters and Tom isn’t there. I find the two of them on the holodeck covered in mud with Tango driving and Tom riding shotgun on a vehicle with gigantic wheels and no sides or roof. They’re attempting to navigate through what looks like a river of muck, both screeching with joy and practically dancing in their seats. 

They haven’t noticed me, so I exit the holodeck with a smile tugging at my lips.

I don’t know how much later it is when Tom settles in bed next to me. I shuffle toward his warmth, hooking my leg over his hip. “Kid never went mudding,” he whispers. “Turns out we lost holodecks when he was a toddler.”

“So you’re friends now?” I murmur.

“Tango didn’t want to lose focus on his mission by letting his feelings get in the way. Once he got past that, he’s a big softie. I wonder where he gets that from.”

I’d poke Tom for teasing me, but I’m already mostly lulled back to sleep by his arms around me. 

Besides, tomorrow is a big day.

***

_ Voyager _ emerged from the wormhole like a kitten that tumbled down a flight of stairs.

The journey blew every relay and fried just about every major system and most sub-systems. 

But we kept life support. 

And Tom, if I do say so myself, piloted the ship like _ Voyager _ was a prima ballerina pirouetting between spatial distortions and subspace shear. 

The knots Tuvok taught everyone to tie stayed in place, but he hadn’t given instructions on how to untie them. So when a Starfleet security detail came aboard — unexpectedly, because we didn’t have sensors or communication — only a few of us were able to get up from our chairs.

Tango was fast, though. We were where he said we would be near Deep Space Five and as soon as Tuvok untied him, Tango congratulated everyone, told Tom and me he’d see us in a few years, and was gone in his timeship before enough people were untied to stop him. 

_ Voyager _ was too damaged to track his heading and the ships surrounding us were too busy trying to find the wormhole we’d emerged from, even though it was back to wildly twisting through subspace.

It took a few months to set up Tom’s meeting with the Romulans. But, afterward, they honored him as a friend of the Romulan Star Empire and began almost immediately to set up colonies on panthalassic planets.

When the baby in my belly was turning somersaults, I asked Tom how he thought Tango got his name. He said Tango actually told him. Evidently, to honor our matchmakers from another quantum reality, Tom and I followed their model and used Earth’s old International Civil Aviation Organization phonetic alphabet. The “t” of Tango was our way of saying “thank you.”

So, we let history repeat itself.

Then, five years after that, we figured “just one more” for his sister, Juliet. 

Our family lives on the _Jemison_, the vessel Tom captains. We’re usually within a few light years of the sector where I direct Starfleet research space stations and vessels. One day, I’m working at the desk in our quarters when the doors open and I hear “Mom!” in a voice too deep to be one of my children. 

“Tango!”

He looks exactly as I remember, down to the smile that mirrors his father’s — and his younger self who is at school onboard.

Tom follows Tango in. “Look who just rode _Voyager_ home, made a pit stop at the Department of Temporal Investigations, and then jumped through time again to see us before he finishes his mission.”

My arms are around Tango’s shoulders and he’s stooping so I can hold him extra close. “You brought us home! What do you mean you aren’t finished?”

He whispers in my ear, “My name means ‘thank you,’ remember?”

Tango tells us he’s headed into the wormhole again. He plans to time travel to the stardate when I unwittingly took the _Flyer_ to the other reality. He’ll cloak his ship, shield his body from quantum flux, and follow the other _Voyager_. Once they get to the wormhole, Tango will tell them how to get home. It turns out, in addition to admiring the seat belts onboard the _ Jemison_, Tango has spent the last hour listening to Tom explain how Tom convinced the Romulans to populate their own worlds, not fight for Federation soil. 

Because the Tom of the other universe didn’t take their _Flyer _to the depths of Monea. He can’t speak to a too-fast descent or the effect on structural integrity when multiple ships are in close proximity. 

But Tango will save their Federation as well as our own, thanks to what, for a long time, I considered one of my biggest mistakes. 

My voice cracks as I ask how I can repay him. 

“Actually,” he runs a hand along his hair, “it’s not for me. My mom — the one from my timeline — she may not exist anymore, but there was something she wanted more than anything.”

So, through the viewport, I watch Tango’s timeship go to warp as Tom’s hand is sure on my lower back for our dance to _ Unforgettable_.


End file.
